Rhubarb Cookies

This week I made a rhubarb trifecta:  I wanted to see how many new recipes I could come up with from a single batch of stewed rhubarb.  (Sometimes it's fun to pose yourself a challenge like that.)  

I came up with three different dishes.  There might have been more but we ended up eating the rest of the stewed rhubarb over pancakes.  It was just too good to resist!

These cookies are the first of my three recipes.  They're a riff on my favourite soft cookie from Marion Cunningham's Fanny Farmer Baking Book. It's a recipe for pumpkin cookies but the proportions lend themselves to trying different ingredients.  The resulting cookie is always very nice and the recipe recommends itself to me because it's very inexpensive to make.

I most often use applesauce when making this recipe, together with the spices that Ms. Cunningham calls for in the book.  This time, though, I decided to make it with rhubarb and to substitute some orange rind in place of the usual spices.   I was well pleased with the results and so, apparently, was my husband.  The cookie jar was emptied in very short order!

To make Rhubarb Cookies, you'll need:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup stewed rhubarb
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons grated orange rind (not pictured)
• 1 cup golden raisins

Begin by putting the raisins in a measuring cup and covering them with boiling water.  Let them sit for at least half an hour, then drain them well.  (I often reserve this soaking water for use in another baking recipe.  It has nice flavour.)

Cream together the butter and sugar, then add in the egg, vanilla and rhubarb.  The resulting mixture is not very pretty.  It's kind of curdled looking but that's just bits of butter suspended in the other liquids.  It's actually fine.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, and orange peel.  When they're well combined, add them to the rhubarb mixture and stir until the dough is completely mixed.  Stir in the raisins.
 

Butter some baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.  Drop generous spoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart.
 

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes in a 350F oven, until lightly browned around the edges. Cool on racks or on sheets of brown paper.
 

Store the cookies in an airtight container.  They'll keep for several days on the counter (if they're not all eaten right away!) or they store well in the freezer.